Monday, April 20, 2009

The best thing about the IPL so far...

(IPL = Indian Premier League; an Indian city-based franchise cricket league/tournament currently in its second year being held in South Africa because of security issues in India)

Last year the IPL was a huge novelty, an unknown. It was also wildly successful. The idea of a city-based cricket league really took off in India in a big way. Twenty20 is certainly here to stay.

Disappointingly, this year the IPL tournament is being held in South Africa. The Indian government was not able to guarantee the safety of the tournament given that it coincided with the Indian general elections - a super mammoth exercise in itself that would stretch security agencies, supposedly, to the max.

The tournament began this past weekend in SA. A few games have been completed. A lot of big name players and a good amount of cricket has been seen. But the best thing that has happened so far is not the cricket, or the fanfare (or lack thereof), or the hype, or the asinine Bollywood activities surrounding the event, or even the player slappings, coach firings, and other going ons...

The best thing is the surfacing of this blog that started on the eve of the game called "Fake IPL Player". The interesting thing about this blog is not just the humor/satire, particularly involving and directed at the Kolkata Knight Riders, a team owned by Shah Rukh Khan, but the level of detail with which supposedly fake events that happened outside the cricket field are described. Despite the disclaimer that all events and people mentioned in that blog are fictitious, there is just too much information for the blog to be considered an entire fake. Which means, in the guise of a fake blog, we may have someone who has insider access to the KKR team and is giving us some sort of factual insight into all thats going on behind the scenes. And for a team thats struggling on all aspects and heading towards a huge meltdown of some sorts, it makes for very interesting reading.

Fake's posts are something to look forward to, even more than the cricket.

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